Jordanian mourners urge Amman to close Israeli embassy

Thousands of Jordanians have held a funeral ceremony for a teenager recently assassinated by an Israeli embassy guard, chanting anti-Tel Aviv slogans and urging the government to close down the regime’s mission in Amman.

According to Press TV, on Tuesday, the protesters chanted, “Death to Israel” and “No to an Israeli embassy or ambassador on Jordanian land!” as they carried the coffin of 16-year-old Mohammad Jawawdah.

The protesters carried pictures of the teenager along with Palestinian and Jordanian flags, also urging Amman to scrap its unpopular 1994 peace treaty with Tel Aviv. Aside from Egypt, Jordan is the only country to have made such a deal with Zionist regime.

The guard opened fire last Sunday, martyring the teenager, whom he claimed had attempted to attack him with a screwdriver. A passerby was also killed in the assault.

Jawawdah had come to the diplomatic premises to install furniture, and his father has described him as “not a trouble-maker or a terrorist” and not affiliated with any political party.

Jordan initially barred the staff of the mission from leaving the country pending a probe, but it later decided against looking into the incident after intervention by the United States, sending the guard alongside other embassy personnel back to the Occupied Palestinian Lands.

The intervention saw Trump dispatching his Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, to Tel Aviv on Monday, and then to Jordan to address the incident.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu later thanked Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner for helping to bring the embassy staff back home as well as Jordan’s King Abdullah “for our close cooperation.”

At a Wednesday UN Security Council general session, Es’haq Al-e-Habib, the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic to the United Nations, slammed the Israeli restrictions as  the latest instance of the regime’s illegal measures.

“Occupation, repeated violations of the rights of Palestinians and other countries, as well as the expansionist policies of the Zionist regime have continued over the past decades, and they have now intensified thanks to egregious support by the new US administration for the regime,” he asserted.

“Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands is at the center of all the crises in the Middle East, and whatever attempt at its rationalization is aimed at blurring the truth,” the envoy noted.

ME